The few remarks I wish to make on this occasion are of a rather general nature but I think they are fundamental. I am afraid that in approaching the problem of education in this country we frequently get lost in the details of mechanism and we forget sometimes the broader aspect of the problem. With the world as it is to-day, the function which the Minister for Education has is perhaps one of the most important functions in the State and the proper direction of education will have more lasting and ultimately more important effects on the life of the country than perhaps any other activity of the State. I might put it this way: we have achieved a certain measure of economic and political freedom.
We have, as far as Twenty-six Counties are concerned, achieved what generations of the people fought and strove for but we have achieved these things under circumstances which make the preservation of liberty and of our national entity a more difficult thing than perhaps it might have been some hundred years ago. Because of the effective way in which the foreigner substituted his language for the ordinary language of the people over the greater part of our territory and because of modern trends in communication and, in particular, the ease with which foreign ideas and foreign ideals can come to our people, we run a greater risk nowadays than ever before in our history of losing our national individuality. Of course, if we lose that thing which makes us a separate nation and gives us what I have called our national individuality, then political and economic freedom and these other things are so much—I would almost call them shams, in those circumstances. Because, assuredly, as we lose that thing that makes us a separate people, a separate nation, because of our inferiority in numbers and our lack of physical resources, we must ultimately become absorbed and there will be no Irish people to enjoy the economic and political liberty which we have.
For these reasons it seems to me that the function of education is of paramount importance. I should say it is the greatest priority of any of the tasks before us to preserve in ourselves our national outlook and our national culture, to preserve in ourselves that thing that makes the people of this country a nation and distinguishes them from other nations. It is, in other words, preserving the soul of the nation. As I said already, if that soul is allowed to die, the body dies also and there is nothing left to enjoy the political and economic liberty which we have.
That argument is an argument for ourselves but an important one. It means this, that having regard to the disadvantageous position that we are in in having no language barrier to preserve our culture, having regard to the dangers arising from the free drift of foreign ideas and foreign ideals into the country through the medium of a foreign language, it is an essential in our educative system that we counterbalance that by inspiring all our young people with the ideals that have inspired their progenitors, the ideals that enabled the nation to survive under the most adverse circumstances, so that these ideals may sustain those children when they reach maturity and are the backbone of the nation.
That general thesis will be agreed upon by all members of the House. In practice, what does it involve? It involves that in our educational system we must whole-heartedly adopt our national ideals, that we make no apology for our history, our nationhood or our traditions, that everything in our history which is inspiring to the young, which inspires them with the sense of pride in that they are Irish and the descendants of those Irish men and women who fought and died for that culture, must be taught to them. We must teach them their history. We must teach them in a sympathetic and even, if you like, in a propagandist way. We must teach them to admire their own heroes, the ideals that are to be found in Gaelic and the best of Irish literature in either language.
That is what we must do. I feel that at present we are not uncompromising enough on that, that we are a trifle too cautious, that our children in school do not hear enough about their own history. For instance, how much does the personality and work of Pearse appear in our school curriculum? How much do we find of the ideals of Davis? How much do we hear of the exploits of, say, Myles Byrne, which are a thrilling enough story for any youngster, in which he will hear of heroes of other countries? How much of these do we give our children in school? If we do not give them these are they to get the inspiration that will fire them to take their place in the building up of this nation as we would all like to see it built up?
Therefore, on that ground, I would take this opportunity to say to a Minister, who is as solicitous as anybody else—I am glad to be able to say it— for the revival of our Irish culture: in that revival do not concentrate all the time on mechanics. Get at the spirit; get those live personalities from history to inspire our young people in the ideal of nationhood and Irish nationality, which inspired the generations in the past who fought and who have achieved by now some measure of the aims for which they stood. That, of course, is an argument for ourselves. It simply means that, if we are to get cohesion amongst our people, the determination to build up the nation which we would like to see built up here, we must have some common ideal to inspire our young people growing up. It is only some bond of that nature that will enable them to pull together, to put selfish interests in the second place and to co-operate in the common task.
Apart from that, the preservation of these ideals is an absolute essential to the preservation of the national individuality of this nation. I might even go further: there is another very good reason, more than ever valid to-day, for urging on the Minister to pay attention to the teaching of our traditions, to the development of our culture, to the teaching of our history, in the schools. It is this. We see in the world to-day a conflict of ideologies— we have the new from the East, characterised by many features which are grossly repugnant to us; we have the old, but, unfortunately, many of the adherents of the old order have lost, and now lack, the spiritual conviction and strength that they would need in the crisis, in their watering down of the principles of Christianity from time to time. That conflict is going on in the world. In that conflict we, in company with a few other nations in Southern Europe, have a unique advantage. In our distinctive Irish culture, we have the philosophy of Christianity enshrined in an undiluted form. In our own Gaelic culture, we have that which England and many other States in the world have lost, in their career in search of material prosperity.
One useful legacy to us from the times of adversity is that, fundamentally, we have in our culture all the essential ingredients of objective truth. We must, therefore, preserve them and to do so we must preserve that culture. That is another argument—and perhaps, approaching it from another, a wider point of view, than the mere nation at home, an overriding argument—for the preservation and fostering of our own culture, our own ideals and our own traditions here at home. Nobody who has been brought up in that Irish Christian tradition can be at a loss for his philosophic basis. He is very sure of his ground and he does not need to speculate on new economic theories or grope in the dark for a new anchorage. For instance, nobody imbued with that culture would have to fall back on a form of socialism as a philosophy and you would not hear from somebody in this country a declaration that Socialism is "a way of life, not just an economic theory". A declaration of that sort was made in another country recently, in their efforts to grope for a set of principles on which to act to meet modern conditions.
We have that stable basis in our own traditions and our own culture and we did not have to look to any modern `isms' or ways of life to try to find a norm according to which we can act together and develop this country. We have it already. It has been tried in the past and found sufficient for us. It will be sufficient for the future and may even be more. It is conceivable that, in the stability which we have in that, we may be a useful regenerating focus for a portion of the world again. That may seem almost a poetic aspiration, unworthy of someone talking in a deliberative Assembly, but when one analyses it and when one can see what we have, in that unmitigated, uncompromising Christian tradition of our own culture, I feel perfectly warranted in making this statement.
For these reasons, I would like to ask the Minister to consider in our educational system at this time the particular need for inspiring our young people with our national ideals and traditions. Because of very frequent use, these may seem hackneyed terms, but they still express accurately in them something of fundamental worth. Let every child be inspired by these things, let these things be made living for them, let them be a guide for their actions, let these things be made living and so be proud of themselves and their culture and in that way contribute to this country taking its proper place in the Christian world and, if necessary, in meeting those threats from Russia or elsewhere that seem to be threatening the old civilisation at the moment.
I would ask the Minister, therefore, to try to achieve that aim and, as a means of achieving it, to emphasise the teaching of history, going beyond the mere mechanics of teaching a language, the teaching of something live, the inspiring of idealism in these young people's hearts, the beating down of cynicism, that cynicism that comes through lack of education and lack of enthusiasm for ideals. Instead of encouraging our children to be cynics, as modern trends would make them, let us try to make them enthusiasts, to make them idealistic enthusiasts. In that way, they can be brought to co-operate in the future and to set about the task which, unfortunately, largely remains to be done, of building up this nation as this nation should be built.
